Events

Talk Abstract: This talk centers how embodied theories of learning, informed by the artistic practices of dancers, can reframe what is learned in STEAM spaces and how it can be learned (and analyzed). In particular, this talk looks at how choreographic-based, expansive views of embodied learning can reframe uncertainty as a common feeling in science learning that is often used to discount participation and instead can be generative for ensemble thinking and learning. Across two primary studies, Vogelstein demonstrates how incorporating ensemble-based, choreographic practices into STEM learning environments can expand learners' sensemaking resources (e.g., movement proposals and responses) and support learning by both youth and adult researchers alike. Choreographic inquiry practices offer new ways to support embodied STEM learning that center equitable forms of ensemble participation while broadening the domain-specific conceptual terrain in ways that are generative for the Learning Sciences.

Lauren Vogelstein, PhD, is a visiting assistant professor of dance education in the Department of Arts and Humanities at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on designing and studying STEAM learning environments where the A in STEAM is as respected as the STEM disciplines involved. In particular, Dr. Vogelstein explores how collaborating with dancers and choreographers on the design and analysis of STEAM spaces can leverage artistic and choreographic research as rigorous forms of collective learning. Her interests at the intersection of STEM and dance were nurtured at Fordham University and the Alvin Ailey School, where she earned her BS in mathematics and BFA in dance with a concentration in choreography. She went on to earn her MA in learning sciences from Northwestern University and her PhD in learning and design from Vanderbilt University. She recently completed postdoctoral fellowships at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania, working on NSF-funded projects focused on the study of equitable and expressive computing learning environments. In addition, she currently serves as a Co-PI on the NSF-funded AISL project, Choreographing Science ($858,997, Award #2115773). Her research has been published in the Journal of the Learning Sciences and ZDM Mathematics Education.

Talk Abstract: Addressing the planet’s most urgent socio-ecological challenges requires coordination across individuals, institutions, the built environment, and the natural world. This kind of coordination is complex and involves learning at different scales of practice. In this  presentation I describe my dissertation work, which seeks to better understand learning at the scale of the neighborhood, through a collaborative filmmaking project. Residents of a predominantly white, densifying Seattle neighborhood led a series of local walking tours, filmed these tours, and assembled the footage into a documentary film. By theorizing civic learning as a semiotic process, I examine how discourses related to neighborhood and community life inform participants’ modes of expression; and how these modes of expression are laminated into modes of relation over the course of the study. Findings show that discourses of care, accessibility, and groundedness emerge and transform through participants’ ongoing place-storying and infrastructuring efforts. From this analysis, I suggest implications for planners, education researchers, and others interested in creating civic media and designing civic learning environments.

Ari Hock, PhD, is a postdoc in the Institute for Learning Sciences. He studies learning "in the wild"—in public spaces, neighborhoods and cities. Ari is interested in how communities coalesce and align their work through collaboration, conflict and storytelling to address large, societal challenges.

Talk Abstract: With the rapid development of technology, young children now have access to various technologies such as tablets, VR/AR, and AI. More importantly, there remain questions about how we can use such technology to support young children’s learning through interaction in rich sociocultural contexts. Building on Cultural Historically Activity Theory (CHAT) and Learning Embodied Activity Framework (LEAF), my work focuses on designing age-appropriate science learning activities within a Mixed Reality environment. In my presentation, she will first showcase her designs for collective embodied play that facilitate science modeling in MR. Next, I will address the challenges of assessing embodied learning in MR environments through traditional methods. I will share my mixed methods approaches to documenting young learners' collective embodied learning, offering a comprehensive view of their educational experiences.

Xintian Tu, PhD, is a postdoctoral associate at the UB Institute for Learning Sciences, where she explores the cutting edge of how young children learn through play and technology. With a PhD in learning sciences and a minor in inquiry methodology from Indiana University, Xintian specializes in designing immersive and interactive learning environments, including mixed reality, to foster and capture children's learning in dynamic ways. Her research interests fall into embodied learning, play and advanced technology, aiming to create transformative educational experiences for young learners.

Talk Abstract: Climate change threats are ever increasing, forcing communities to ask: what do they value and how are they going to protect it? Community-based climate education should play a central role in supporting equitable local decisions regarding local responses to climate challenges. However, there is little research about how to best support communities, especially rural communities that may be skeptical of climate change, to see how climate change is affecting their landscapes. Guided by the perspectives and practices of critical data science and story listening, I frame my research around data and story. Prior work has considered the role of climate data within environmental education and story within community scholarship, but there is still a need to explore expanded notions of data within community learning and the role of community-held stories in local decision-making. My work focuses on how local, personally held landscape and climate data might complement and extend local, institutionally held data and how map building might support data-rich storytelling and listening. In this talk I will share my community-based work building a map with six residents of a conservative-leaning, rural community and how collaborative map design supported participants to convene knowledge about local landscape and climate, ratify that knowledge through inclusion onto a public map, and ultimately inform community decision making. I found the collaborative map building process allowed local, often generationally held, climate and landscape knowledge to become community-held understanding, pointing to a pathway for engaging community members in understanding how local and beyond-local socio-cultural values and systems are physically embodied in their local landscapes.

Heather Killen, PhD, is a postdoctoral associate for the Institute for Learning Sciences where she is motivated to help people navigate the ever-increasing challenges of climate change. Her transdisciplinary learning sciences research unites science and data science education, climate science, civic engagement, and design to explore the space between science and community and how each can support the other. She grounds her scholarship in her experience growing up and living in rural communities and her previous work as an ecologist, where she witnessed how academic ways of knowing could overlook community-held scientific knowledge. Heather earned her PhD in Technology, Learning, and Leadership from the College of Education at the University of Maryland and holds a master’s degree in biology from the Boston University Marine Program at Woods Hole. Prior to her focus on understanding how communities engage in science learning, she worked as an ecologist for federal, state, and tribal governments, served as biology faculty for a rural community college in Arizona, and led citizen science and curriculum development for the Fossil Atmospheres Project, housed within the Paleobiology Department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Heather has also lived and taught abroad, primarily in Japan, and spent time living and working at the U.S. research station McMurdo in Antarctica.

Talk Abstract: Chicanas and other women of color (WOC) have long centered embodied knowledge and storytelling as a critical part of intergenerational healing and learning. However, these experiences are not typically accounted for and are often invisibilized. Dr. Wendy Barrales, PhD explores what we might learn when we attune, document, and account for intergenerational WOC experiences across time and space. Grounded in arts-based methods and feminista embodied knowledge, this research showcases the creation of the Women of Color Archive (WOCArchive), a digital storytelling project preserving the stories of matriarchs of color. Through an emphasis on the feminist praxis of process over product, Barrales’s purpose is twofold: first, to describe how the digital art pieces and archive were co-created alongside youth and showcased at a public art exhibition and, second, to center and celebrate WOC as experts and knowledge producers. Through documenting, preserving, and amplifying their stories, Barrales's research attempts to begin giving women of color their flowers. 

Wendy Barrales, PhD, is an interdisciplinary scholar-activist and Postdoctoral Associate at New York University's Department of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Barrales merges art, archiving, and digital storytelling to amplify the experiences of women of color. Barrales was the founding Adviser of Curriculum and Design of an all-girls STEM high school in Brooklyn, where she was the inaugural chair of Ethnic Studies.

After a decade as a public school teacher, Barrales continues to support educators through the Computer Science for All initiative, as an Induction Mentor at Teachers College, Columbia University and facilitating workshops on political education with the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE). Her work has been awarded or funded by the American Association of University Women, the National Science Foundation, the George Lucas Educational Foundation and the National Women’s Studies Association. 

Join us as we explore the pivotal role of learning sciences in addressing societal issues. A distinguished panel of experts will discuss the intersection of research, design, and interdisciplinary collaboration in shaping the future of the field.

Date: Friday, May 3, 2024
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: 120 Clemens Hall, University at Buffalo, North Campus